When I was younger, we celebrated a very Christian Christmas. We'd wake up early, read the Nativity story from Matthew and reflect on the goodness of God before ripping into our presents. We've carried on variations of that tradition as I've grown up, but it's noticeably thinned out in recent years. This Christmas was all about the meal. We scaled back the gift giving with the secret Santas, so the main focus was making sure dinner was ready at a reasonable hour. We cooked to a ready-made Christmas playlist and rounded off the baking around 4:30.
Since we're not savages, we opened dinner with a prayer. To keep the mood going, I thought it'd be nice to leave the background music on. What I hadn't anticipated was that the Beach Boys would come on just as we gathered around the table. So every time my dad would say, "...In Jesus' name." it would be punctuated by a mocking "Ooh~! Little SAINT Nick!" I tried my best to ignore it, but the growing sniggers from the visiting under-25s made me defenseless to the rhythmic undermining. I laughed throughout the prayer until I was forced to leave and turn off my iTunes. I couldn't help but think that maybe it was God's way of telling me that I was moving away from the true meaning of Christmas. Or, that it was Santan's way of claiming his stake in this growingly secularized holiday. Either way, I think I found a new tradition~!
<3!
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